Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.1): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

454 FATL TO KEACH SAN DIEGO. Juiie 1830. of Good Success, to complete wood and water, and obtain rates for the chronometers, previously to leaving the coast. Wind and tide favoured us, and at noon we were moored in Good Success Bay. Soon afterwards I left the Beagle, in my boat, with a week's provisions, intending to try to land near Cape San Diego, and thence walk to the cape with the instru- ments ; but I found a cross swell in the strait, and a rocky shore without a place in which the boat could land : though I risked knocking her to pieces by trying to land in the only corner where there seemed to be any chance. After this escape I tried farther on, without success ; by which time it became dark, and if I had not returned immediately, while the ebb-tide made, the flood would have begun and obliged me to lie at a grapnel, during a frosty night, in a strong tide-way, witli the boat's crew wet through : I turned back, therefore, and pulled towards Success Bay, assisted by the tide, but the cockling sea it made half filled the boat more than once, and we were thankful when again safely on board the Beagle. " Havino; failed in this scheme for settling the latitude of Cape San Diego, I thought of effecting it by bringing the Beagle to an anchor in the strait, two or three miles to the eastward of Good Success Bay, and thence connecting the Cape to known points by triangulation ; the heads of this bay and Cape Good Success, quite correctly placed, serving as the foundation. " June 5th. I obtained some sights of the sun this morning and observations at noon, besides bearings and angles to verify former ones. All hands were busy wooding and watering, pre- paratory to returning to Monte Video. A large albatross was shot by my coxswain, which measured nearly fourteen feet across the wings. " 6th. The snow which covered the ground when we were first here was quite gone, and the weather was comparatively mild. The frost at nieht was not more than in a common winter's night in England, the thermometer ranging from 27° to 32°. The tide was carefully noticed this day, being full